Episode 5: Gang Starr, Pet Shop Boys and The Smiths (plus iPod Touch; and Free Software)

Posted on by Daniel J. McKeown

pacificpelican.us/oggcast/5 show notes:
1. I discuss three of my favorite albums
a. Gang Starr – Moment of Truth (1998)
b. Pet Shop Boys – Discography (1991)
c. The Smiths – The Queen is Dead (1986)
2. I saw the new (4th generation) iPod Touch and it looks cool, very narrow and almost as good as an iPhone 4 in terms of screen and cameras
3. Software freedom is important
a. I believe that understanding the concept of free software is important
b. I have released my WordPress themes under the GPL (version 2 or later)–so they are free as in freedom as well as free as in free download

(mp3 version)

(flac version)

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Episode 4: Oracle dumps OpenSolaris and sues Google + trance

Posted on by Daniel J. McKeown
1. Oracle buys Sun Microsystems, kills OpenSolaris, sues Google over Java – Will this affect Oracle’s reputation in open source and will the tactics spill over to products like mySQL?
2. Google and Verizon collude against net neutrality
3. Some trance artists I like (warning: auto-play possible): Sander Kleinenberg, Paul van Dyk, Tiesto, Sander van Doorn, Above and Beyond (check out “On a Good Day“), Ferry Corsten, Armin van Buuren (and Sophie Ellis-Bextor; check out “Not Giving Up“), Gabriel and Dresden
4. Belle the parakeet sings the outro

(mp3 version)

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Dodger climbs

Posted on by Daniel J. McKeown

Dodger the parakeet is again the star of an oggcast video, but now this time the young bird with clipped wings is out of the cage and climbing the blinds to meet his flighted friends Sparty and Belle as Jessica encourages them.
You can also see Dodger and the flock in this video.

(webm version)

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Episode 3: 2010 elections coming up, Wikileaks, Firefox 4 beta

Posted on by Daniel J. McKeown

In this wide-ranging, 24 minute oggcast Jessica and I discuss numerous topics and opinions. The show notes are good as a rough guide to the content.

pacificpelican.us/oggcast/3

show notes
1. politics and the 2010 election in the U.S.
a. Barack Obama has betrayed his liberal base
b. Republicans will try to return the country to the Bush agenda
c. Ohio governor’s race between Ted Strickland (D) and John Kasich (R)
d. right-wingers like their secession politics
2. parts of Arizona immigration law struck down in legal injunction
3. Wikileaks reveals documents from the Afghan War
a. transparency and government
b. Afghan opium: nytimes.com: “The American military — which has decided that widespread eradication can be counterproductive to winning over Afghans […]”
c. Afghanistan: NATO-funded contractors pay the Taliban
4. Tech roundup
a. Firefox 4 beta 2 available
b. photo management – Aperture 3 vs. free alternatives like Digikam, Shotwell and F-Spot
c. New Apple hardware – the ‘Magic Trackpad‘

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Episode 2 – Media Codes: WebM vs. H.264

Posted on by Daniel J. McKeown

In this podcast I discuss some of the different codec technologies I’ve used for audio and video (which include mpeg1, mp3, mpeg2, mpeg4, h.264; and maybe Theora soon and WebM eventually) for this oggcast, my podcast and more, why I prefer open standards like Vorbis and Theora, and why it’s good that Google open-sorced the VP8 codec (which they are packaging with the Matroska container format and the Vorbis audio codec in order to create the WebM media standard).

links:

My Ubuntu top 11 app recommendations

my free (GPL 2+) WordPress theme (version 0.1) [not actually mentioned in show]

The WebM Project : The WebM Project : Welcome to the WebM Project.

Matroska | CoreCodec.

Vorbis.com.

Theora.org :: main – Theora, video for everyone.

Apple – QuickTime – Technologies – H.264.

twitter.com/pacificpelican

pacificpelican.us

(mp3 version)

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episode 1 featuring Jessica McKeown

Posted on by Daniel J. McKeown

I was lucky enough to interview my wife Jessica, an expert in social networking and online audience building, for the first oggcast–and we talk about the evolution of web 2.0, online photo sharing, online privacy issues, why Flickr isn’t the top photo sharing network (and Facebook still is), and how Myspace used to be the biggest social network and how that time is now over. We also hear from Jessica on the importance of the mobile space for sites and brands, including how the audience wants to learn about your site now.

(mp3 version)

Podcast: Download